When the oldest surviving record company goes all in on a conductor, everyone notices.
I prefer it when the conductor follows me. It is more difficult to work with a conductor who does not listen - even if I understand that sometimes it makes sense when one person is ruling everything. But for bel canto, I have to have a conductor who listens and supports me.
There are two types of conductors. One is the good conductor who can do passionate music but also listen to the singers and do the orchestra. And then there are great conductors, who have their own opinion on the music, who are ruling everything - and not listening much to the singers, but the orchestra play amazingly.
A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.
Musical practice is too young an art in America to warrant a search for men with a conductor's gift.
The conductor's gift does not always go hand in hand with that of composition; indeed, the union is found much more seldom than is popularly believed.
Composers are not all good conductors.
The composers could no longer direct all performances in person, and so the responsibility of interpreting their works in the spirit in which they had been conceived was placed upon conductors.
In America, they have this nauseating habit of calling the conductor 'maestro'. I always slightly gag when the cor anglais player goes, 'Maestro, can I discuss bar 19 with you?'
The conductor must breathe life into the score. It is you and you alone who must expose it to the understanding, reveal the hidden jewel to the sun at the most flattering angles.
